A scheduled 6:30 a.m. opening of the Curtis Bay drawbridge to allow for Coast Guard water traffic to pass beneath caused major traffic back-ups on Interstate 695 in both directions Friday morning. The drawbridge had closed by 6:59 a.m. and traffic was again flowing as of about 7:15 a.m., according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. However, there is a second scheduled opening of the drawbridge at 9:30 a.m., the authority said. An authority dispatcher said he could not estimate how long the second opening will last, because that depends on the type of watercraft moving through the span and water conditions at the time.

A scheduled 6:30 a.m. opening of the Curtis Bay drawbridge to allow for Coast Guard water traffic to pass beneath caused major traffic back-ups on Interstate 695 in both directions Friday morning. The drawbridge had closed by 6:59 a.m. and traffic was again flowing as of about 7:15 a.m., according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. However, there is a second scheduled opening of the drawbridge at 9:30 a.m., the authority said. An authority dispatcher said he could not estimate how long the second opening will last, because that depends on the type of watercraft moving through the span and water conditions at the time.

The first phase of a $14.5 million project by the Maryland Transportation Authority to replace the decks of the Baltimore Beltway drawbridge over Curtis Creek will begin next week, reducing travel lanes and creating new traffic patterns. On Tuesday, crews will shut down the eastbound outer loop of Interstate 695 between Quarantine Road (Exit 1) and Route 10 at 8 p.m. so they can place a barrier wall between the two lanes to allow two-way traffic. On Jan. 7, the inner loop will be closed down.

Two people were killed and others were injured in a car accident at the Curtis Creek drawbridge that closed all lanes of eastbound Interstate 695 in Baltimore late Sunday night, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. Rescue personnel were dispatched to the outer loop bridge at 10:01 p.m. and found at least five victims, a dispatcher said. A Maryland Transportation Authority Police spokesman said 21-year-old Victoria DeAngelo of Dundalk entered the outer loop of 695 near exit 1 driving in the wrong direction Sunday night around 10. She then crashed into an SUV. DeAngelo and a 3-year-old in the SUV, Lily Kelley, died.

IF YOU HAVE occasion to use the Washington beltway -- especially the southern portion where it crosses the Potomac River to Alexandria, Va., you're about to be taken for a very expensive ride that will make commutes worse, not better.Officials from Virginia and the District of Columbia pulled a dirty trick on commuters and frequent beltway travelers. While voting to replace the deteriorating Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the regional panel endorsed a traffic-stopping drawbridge and likely will require cars to stop and pay a toll.

Two people were killed and others were injured in a car accident at the Curtis Creek drawbridge that closed all lanes of eastbound Interstate 695 in Baltimore late Sunday night, according to the Baltimore Fire Department. Rescue personnel were dispatched to the outer loop bridge at 10:01 p.m. and found at least five victims, a dispatcher said. A Maryland Transportation Authority Police spokesman said 21-year-old Victoria DeAngelo of Dundalk entered the outer loop of 695 near exit 1 driving in the wrong direction Sunday night around 10. She then crashed into an SUV. DeAngelo and a 3-year-old in the SUV, Lily Kelley, died.

Community activists fighting the replacement of the Severn River Bridge with an 80-foot-high span have blanketed downtown Annapolis with fliers urging residents to rally on the crumbling drawbridge March 29.Citizens for a Severn Scenic River Bridge have organized a protest for 2 p.m., starting at the now-defunct Spinnakers restaurant on the north end of the drawbridge.

A Federal Highway Administration official says the state will lose $32 million in federal aid if it redesigns a replacement bridge acrossthe lower Severn River to suit residents who want a new drawbridge.The FHA has agreed to finance 80 percent of a $40 million bridge with which the state plans to replace the Route 450 drawbridge."If not constructed as presently designed, these discretionary funds will be returned (to the federal government)," said Porter Barrows administrator of FHA's Maryland Division.

Margaret A. Downs, who lived in East Baltimore for many years, died Thursday of cardiac arrest at the Salisbury Nursing Home.Graveside services for Mrs. Downs, who was 84 and moved to Salisbury in 1985, are at 12:45 this afternoon at the Oak Lawn Cemetery, 7225 Eastern Ave.The former Margaret A. Wittmer was a native of Baltimore. Her husband, John Murray Downs, who retired as operator of the Hanover Street drawbridge, died in 1970.She is survived by a daughter, Patricia Sewell of Salisbury, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Just in time for a change in the seasons, the 70-year-old drawbridge over the Severn River has been replaced by a spanking new 80-foot-high arch of steel and concrete. Now open for traffic, the new $34 million span will offer a scenic approach to the U.S. Naval Academy and the state capital from Route 2.We have made no bones about our affection for the former drawbridge. On bright spring and autumn days in particular, it had something of a magic quality to motorists traversing the narrow stretch.

The first phase of a $14.5 million project by the Maryland Transportation Authority to replace the decks of the Baltimore Beltway drawbridge over Curtis Creek will begin next week, reducing travel lanes and creating new traffic patterns. On Tuesday, crews will shut down the eastbound outer loop of Interstate 695 between Quarantine Road (Exit 1) and Route 10 at 8 p.m. so they can place a barrier wall between the two lanes to allow two-way traffic. On Jan. 7, the inner loop will be closed down.

Parts of the Beltway will be closed during the next three months as the Maryland Transportation Authority repairs a faulty drawbridge over Curtis Creek in Southeast Baltimore, forcing some motorists to make lengthy detours to reach the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Lane closings in connection with the project will start Monday, but a more extensive shutdown will come Jan. 9 when the entire Outer Loop will be closed in the vicinity of the bridge for about five weeks. Traffic will run in two directions on the Inner Loop.

Developers are planning to significantly change the profile of Baltimore's waterfront by raising a second tower beside the new 31-story Marriott Baltimore Waterfront and building a drawbridge that would link the Inner Harbor to Fells Point. The plans unveiled yesterday by H&S Properties Development Corp. include five more buildings in the Inner Harbor East retail and hotel complex on President Street. One would be a 342-foot-tall office building that would rise like a twin tower beside the Marriott.

Because of unexpected work on a repair project that was to have been done this month, the Peninsula Expressway drawbridge over Bear Creek in Dundalk will remain closed until late November, state officials say.The bridge replacement and rehabilitation project began in November, but state highway officials said supporting towers of the drawbridge -- which hold the gears, motors and other mechanical components -- were in surprisingly poor condition.If left unrepaired, the towers could have caused mechanical failure of the draw span, causing it to lock in place, said David Buck, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Transportation's State Highway Administration.

The bridge is stuck! Residents of Riviera Beach and the small waterfront communities that hug the shores of the Patapsco River in northern Anne Arundel County say they hear that way too often.The 52-year-old Stoney Creek drawbridge -- which goes up for boats and often doesn't come down for cars -- is a touchy topic, the mere mention of which can move perfectly normal people to eye-bulging, vein-popping, blood pressure-boosting diatribes.It's not the daily traffic delays on the two-lane structure connecting the north and south sides of Fort Smallwood Road that bother residents.

It is, quite literally, an Annapolis rite of passage. Not to mention a ritual frustration for residents of the nation's self-proclaimed sailing capital.The Eastport Bridge, a two-lane landmark linking the city's prime tourist area with a peninsula of Cape Cod-style cottages and waterfront condominiums, has started its seasonal rise and fall to allow sailors passage from harbor slip to Chesapeake Bay for evening regattas. And in water-carved Annapolis, boats more often than not have the right of way over just about anything else.

Parts of the Beltway will be closed during the next three months as the Maryland Transportation Authority repairs a faulty drawbridge over Curtis Creek in Southeast Baltimore, forcing some motorists to make lengthy detours to reach the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Lane closings in connection with the project will start Monday, but a more extensive shutdown will come Jan. 9 when the entire Outer Loop will be closed in the vicinity of the bridge for about five weeks. Traffic will run in two directions on the Inner Loop.

Bermuda can be a puzzle. For more than 350 years the linked island chain has been under one flag, yet its history records major social and political diversity -- not so much between neighbors but between its geographic end points.They say your attitude begins to change as you travel east and cross the world's smallest drawbridge (22 inches wide, just enough to permit passage of a sailboat mast) between Somerset Island and Southampton Parish. As for residents, although East Enders and West Enders occasionally rub shoulders in central Hamilton, only taxi drivers appear to make the tip-to-tip journey very often.

IF YOU HAVE occasion to use the Washington beltway -- especially the southern portion where it crosses the Potomac River to Alexandria, Va., you're about to be taken for a very expensive ride that will make commutes worse, not better.Officials from Virginia and the District of Columbia pulled a dirty trick on commuters and frequent beltway travelers. While voting to replace the deteriorating Woodrow Wilson Bridge, the regional panel endorsed a traffic-stopping drawbridge and likely will require cars to stop and pay a toll.